Twin tower tenants were elite of business world / Bay Area firms well-represented

Peter Sinton, Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 12, 2001

In the carnage of New York's collapsed World Trade Center and its twin tower icons of America's industrial and financial might, some of the biggest names in U.S. and international business suffered serious casualties yesterday.

Although estimates of injuries and deaths were not immediately available, hundreds of tenants, who occupied more office space than in downtown San Jose and had a ZIP code all to themselves, were assessing their losses late yesterday.

The most seriously affected Bay Area company is likely San Francisco's ABM Industries, which employed more than 800 engineers, janitors and lighting technicians at the World Trade Center. The site was the janitorial services firm's largest single contract, with annual sales of an estimated $65 million, 3 percent of the company's revenue.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with (our employees), and with their families,

co-workers and other friends," said ABM Chief Executive Officer Henrik Slipsager. "It is, of course, far too early for us to assess the human and financial toll of this tragedy."

Other Bay Area companies with a smaller presence in the World Trade Center included Sun Microsystems, Union Bank of California, Charles Schwab, Gap Inc. and California Bank & Trust.

New York's Morgan Stanley, which had 2,500 retail operations employees in the South Tower and an additional 1,000 in the North Tower, set up a toll-free line for employees and their families.

In a message posted on the company's Web site, Chairman Philip Purcell said he was saddened and outraged by the attacks.

"In spite of this tragedy, all of our businesses are functioning and will continue to function," he wrote. "We are committed to resuming full operations as exchanges and markets reopen." He added that the company's clients "should rest assured that their assets are safe."

Jennifer Tice, spokeswoman for Bank of America, which is based in Charlotte,

N.C., but has foreign markets and some securities operations in the World Trade Center, said she had no details on the bank's operations. The bank said it decided to evacuate some buildings -- including its former San Francisco headquarters and some offices in the Washington, D.C., area -- as a "precautionary measure," but most branches remained open.

Cantor Fitzgerald Securities and its former electronic trading service ESpeed International had operations on floors 102 to 107 of one of the towers and 1,000 employees. Late yesterday it was trying to assess its losses.

"We're trying to find out who made it out, and finding that some people did, " said Josh Margolis, managing director of Cantor Fitzgerald's office in San Francisco.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Los Angeles office of Cantor Fitzgerald had the New York office on its speakerphone as people began screaming and saying the office was filling with smoke and they could not get out.

Union Bank of California, the largest California bank after Wells Fargo, evacuated all 90 to 100 employees working in the bank's international operations on the 14th floor of the World Trade Center and only one person was injured. "We got everyone out because it was the second building hit by the airplane," said bank spokesman Stephen Johnson. Union Bank is headquartered in San Francisco.

Sun Microsystems of Palo Alto had offices on the 25th and 26th floors of the South Tower of the World Trade Center that were used by about 300 sales personnel. Company spokeswoman Penny Bruce said it is still unclear how many were there when the buildings were hit.

Companies with offices and shops on the lower floors of the twin towers and adjoining buildings had a better chance of escape.

Charles Schwab & Co., the San Francisco brokerage, had an office in the World Trade Center, luckily located on the center's concourse level so the employees managed to escape unharmed. "We're relatively certain we have all 10 employees accounted for," said Schwab spokesman Glen Mathison.

Schwab has eight branch offices in New York City and all were closed yesterday. In addition, all Bay Area Schwab employees -- about 6,000 -- were asked to go home or not come to work yesterday.

Gap Inc. had a Gap and Banana Republic store in the World Trade Center. "As far as we know all the employees in those stores were evacuated," said Gap spokeswoman Debbie Gardner. The company closed all stores in the New York and Washington areas and sent employees home from its headquarters in San Francisco and San Bruno. Like several other employers yesterday, Gap sent workers home as a precautionary measure. "We felt our corporate employees would want to be close to their families," said Kellie Leonard, another Gap spokeswoman.

Mrs. Field's Cookies, founded by Debbie Fields in Palo Alto but now headquartered in Salt Lake City, had one of its 4,000 stores on the ground floor of the World Trade Center and also was able to evacuate a half-dozen employees working at the time of the blasts.

International tenants that made the World Trade Center true to its name included Asahi Bank, Bank of Taiwan, Banco Latino Americano de Exportacione, China Chamber of Commerce, Hyundai Securities and Thai Farmers Bank.